Second Chance
by toasty5
Summary: *complete - v. good for short attention spans* Lily, the daughter of the failed Harry Potter, realizes that she alone can defeat Voldemort.
1. Introduction

Disclaimer: The characters I have created are Lily Potter (Harry's daughter), Heather, Shawna, Matilda, and Thomas. (Most) other characters are JK Rowling's, as is the setting and general idea of Voldemort being evil. The plot is mine as well.  
  
"Did she say Lily Potter?" hissed several voices in the Great Hall. "Not the daughter of Harry Potter?" The quiet whispers grew to a crescendo, and more than one person was eyeing Lily with wariness or even anger.  
  
It was because of Lily's father that many of the people at Hogwarts had friends or family murdered brutally. Harry Potter, the only one capable of killing the Dark Lord, had failed, and was murdered himself. The Dark Lord had been on the loose for the past twelve years, killing any and all in his path. Muggles had at last been alerted to the presence of wizards and witches living in their world, and they, too, lived in constant fear of Voldemort. Half the wizard world - and even some of the Muggle world - had joined forces with Voldemort. Hogwarts had even been overtaken at one point, but had been recaptured and restored beautifully by none other than Hermione Granger, the currant Headmistress of Hogwarts. It was now the only wizard school in Europe that had not been overtaken by Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and therefore had a variety of languages, accents, and cultures. Albus Dumbledore had passed away a year before Lily's first year of natural causes. Hogwarts was considered a safe haven now, although there were rumored to be a few spies within the castle walls, and many wizards rushed to work or at least live there. Hermione had grown to be just as powerful and respected as Dumbledore, and was, to the teachers' great sorrow, not as odd as the aged and eclectic wizard had been. In a nutshell, it was just like the time period before Harry was born. Nobody trusted anybody else.  
  
It was because of this that Lily Potter trudged up to the Sorting Hat, eyes brimming with tears. With the exception of Professor Granger, she was probably the only one in the room with the least amount of respect for her father, although she never knew him. She had been born in a small and grimy cottage in secret five months after Harry had been killed, named for her grandmother, and her own, unknown mother had died shortly after childbirth. Hardly anyone knew of her existence, and she had been taken in by the Weasleys. Ron had ended up marrying a girl he met in Paris while working for his brothers' joke shop, and had almost fainted when he found out Harry had a daughter. He, of course, had to take her in out of respect for his dead best friend. Lily developed into an intelligent yet rebellious girl, with her father's messy black hair, which reached her waist.  
  
The Sorting Hat felt heavy on her head and slipped down in front of her eyes, resting on the tips of her bright red ears.  
  
"Hmm, so little Potter Junior has come to Hogwarts at last," said the Sorting Hat's small voice in her head. "I remember when your father came here. In fact he wore me more than once, most unusual." Lily's stomach tightened when she realized she was wearing the hat her father had once worn. She had precious few items that had belonged to her father; her most prized possession was his invisibility cloak, which, she was told, had also belonged to her grandfather. Whenever she wore it she felt as if she had disappeared from the sphere of shame she felt she lived in, being the daughter of the failed Harry Potter.  
  
"Thinking again about Harry, are you?" said the hat again. Lily had forgotten where she was for a moment in her self-pity. "I know you want to be in his house. Certainly have the brains for Ravenclaw, but I know in your heart of hearts you want to be in. Gryffindor!" It had shouted the last word, so she removed it from her head and set it back down on the stool, then walked quickly to an available seat at the end of the Gryffindor table where a few first years sat. She slid into her seat, blushing and grimacing. Only a few people had clapped for her, and it looked as though they were the teachers. The only first year who smiled at her was a petite girl who looked as if she had no idea who Harry Potter was, nor what he had failed to do.  
  
Lily often relived her first days at Hogwarts in the form of nightmares. Although she was now in her fifth year and had proven herself to the rest of the Hogwarts students, she could not forget the hatred she had had to live with for a while. The petite girl had become her only friend until people looked past the shame of her father and saw who Lily, as an individual, was.  
  
She woke up with a start, hearing the Sorting Hat's voice ringing in her ears. It was still dark in the room, as it usually was when she woke up after her nightmares. She sighed and rolled over, forcing herself to close her eyes and think about something normal, like Thomas. She grinned and pictured his handsome face in her head. He hardly knew her, but she knew him. She studied his habits and activities, interrogating other people, slowly getting to know him from a safe distance. It was like an obsession, but she couldn't help it. She fell asleep imagining Thomas holding her hand and smiling genuinely at her. 


	2. Disappointed

Disclaimer: see chapter 1. A/N: Hmm, fanfiction.net's doing something funny, it says I have 1 chapter but I guess I have two of the same. This is my first fanfic so I'm not really familiar with the way things go around here, ran into a tad bit of trouble when I realized I'd forgot the disclaimer and to add spaces between the paragraphs, which is kind for the reader's eyes, I think. Advice is nice in the reviews (if any)!  
  
He was squeezing her hand much too tight, she decided, and frowned at Thomas. She was startled to see that it was her father's face, not Thomas', looking down upon her with a softened yet neutral expression. Lily was about to say something to him, but instead heard a voice.  
  
"Lily's still asleep. Maybe we can take it without her noticing. Are you sure we should be doing this?"  
  
"Shh, not so loud, Shawna, you'll wake her up, and you know how annoyed she-"  
  
"What are you taking from me?" Lily asked into her pillow in a slightly slurred tone.  
  
"See what you did?" Shawna Gerardi scolded her friend, Heather. Heather McDonnell, the girl who first befriended Lily in their first year, yanked back the silk curtains around Lily's bed.  
  
"Morning," she said briskly. "Are you awake enough to hit us?"  
  
Lily groaned. "Probably."  
  
"Darn. Put it back, then, Shawna." Shawna returned Lily's invisibility cloak to Lily's trunk. Lily cracked open her eyes, and immediately leaped out of bed.  
  
"What are you doing?" she shrieked loudly and frantically, snatching the cloak from Shawna's hands. She glared at them worriedly and furiously. How could they? How could they take her father's cloak and expect her to not be furious with them? "Didn't I tell you how important this cloak was to me? How could you take it from me? Look, you guys, maybe you don't get it-"  
  
"Sorry, Lily, sorry, we weren't thinking," Heather apologized quickly. "We're so sorry, I feel so bad now, I-"  
  
Lily shrugged and frowned at her after locking her trunk and slipping the key back onto the chain around her neck. "It's okay," she said finally, if only just to shut her friend up. Heather had a way of rambling aimlessly.  
  
As they made their way through the common room and down to the breakfast hall, several people waved or called their greetings. Not only had Lily proven herself to be separate from her father's failings, but she had also shown herself to be a likable person. She had her friends to thank for quashing any insults or nasty rumors pertaining to her family whispered behind her back.  
  
Lily buttered a piece of toast for herself and sprinkled cinnamon over it, then sugar. She had taken her first sweet, spiced bite of her breakfast ritual when a dark brown dropped a note onto her plate, narrowly missing the pitcher of orange juice.  
  
"Get a new owl, Lily?" inquired another Gryffindor, Matilda Brown.  
  
"No," Lily replied, puzzled. She unfolded the note to reveal large block letters spelling out a warning.  
  
"Don't moan about secrets," she read aloud, then snorted. "Stupid prank letter. Honestly, some people."  
  
Shawna raised her thinly-plucked eyebrow and took a small sip of her cranberry juice. "What do you think it means?"  
  
Heather rolled her eyes. "Maybe it's like a warning. Are you keeping secrets from us? Maybe it was delivered to the wrong person. It was a different owl than usual, unless yours molted funny or flew into a bucket of brown paint. It probably means nothing, you know, just trying to scare you, most likely-"  
  
The only thing that stopped Heather's early morning commentary was a bite of her bagel, which was actually mostly cream cheese with a sliver of bagel. And she wondered why she wasn't as thin as Shawna, who only ate half a piece of dry toast every morning.  
  
Lily chewed her lip and slipped the note into her bag, planning to ponder it later over lunch or in the common room after classes. She peeked at her watch, a Muggle digital one given to her on her thirteenth birthday by Mr. Weasley's father, who treated her as a granddaughter.  
  
"I think it's real," Heather declared after swallowing another mouthful of cream cheese. "I'll bet a Death Eater sent it to you." Her words attracted a few gazes from the surrounding students. "Or someone with a very sick mind."  
  
Lily cleared her throat. "What's in the Daily Prophet today?" she asked Matilda.  
  
"Two Death Eaters captured, Cho Chang - that auror, you know? - was awarded the Order of Dumbledore, high honor, that one - oh, no, look at these horrible pictures. 'Beauxbatons Academy of Magic is now a battleground between followers of You-Know-Who and the old headmistress and various witches and wizards', looks like the other side's winning."  
  
Matilda's voice echoed into silence and Lily's visual perception blurred momentarily. She sucked in her breath and all other thoughts completely left her mind. Thomas was looking her way, and he hadn't turned away yet! Should she? No, she would look away when he did. She saw his eyebrow raise slightly, and she felt the corners of her mouth turn up involuntarily. Her heart skipped about a dozen beats as she gazed at his handsome face. He was still looking at her.  
  
"Lily?" Heather's voice cut in and Lily unwillingly looked away, disappointed. Her shoulders hunched unconsciously.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You okay?"  
  
"I'm fine." She heaved her bag over her shoulder. "Come one, we'll be late for History of Magic, which isn't exactly a bad thing, but we'll probably lose points." She left the breakfast table feeling slightly giddy inside. He knows I exist! Was he really staring at me? Maybe he was staring at somebody behind me, or at Shawna; plenty of guys stare at Shawna for heaven's sake. But he looked as though he were looking at me. Oh, those deep brown eyes. Not like his father's. No, his father is so pale and cold looking compared to him. She was once again lost in her thoughts until she realized she was trying to open the door to a janitor's closet. She shook herself mentally and went to the next one over, finding herself to be the first student to arrive for History of Magic. Professor Binns greeted her with a nod and rearranged his notes while Lily sat in the very back of the classroom and prepared herself for an hour-long nap.  
  
The rest of the class slowly filed in, and Heather and Shawna sat on either side of Lily. Heather was grinning madly about something, but Lily reasoned it was something stupid, like somebody tripping in the halls. Heather got out her supplies for note-taking as usual (the rest of the fifth-year Gryffindors usually copied off her for tests; she was Professor Granger's favorite student, probably because her study habits resembled those of a younger Professor Granger's). She immediately scribbled something on a bit of scented parchment and slipped it into Lily's hand under the desk. Lily glanced down and gasped.  
  
"Thomas asked me out!" Heather had written in curly, capital letters. She dotted the exclamation point with a heart.  
  
So that's why he was staring over there, Lily thought sadly. He was staring at Heather. He wanted to ask her out. It was stupid to think he was gazing lovingly at me. She suddenly cringed. She had smiled like an idiot at him! Now he's just going to think of me as the clueless girl with the too-big smile, she lamented. She wrote "Congrats" on the scrap of parchment and sadly passed it back, pasting a phony grin on her face. She was never good at false faces, but Heather didn't notice in her euphoria.  
  
"I'm so lucky!" she saw Heather writing. "He's such a hottie!" More hearts for exclamation points. Lily felt sadder. All that hard work, studying him, getting to know him. She felt a bubble of anger in her gut. She knew him even better than Heather did! The bubble burst and all that was left was a small air pocket of remorse. But she never took the initiative to tell him, or at least to flirt with him like normal girls did. She vowed to quit secretly watching him and focus on something with substance, like schoolwork.  
  
This thought brought her back to attention. She might as well start now, she figured, so she took out some parchment and a quill. Her friends gaped at her, and she shrugged half-heartedly in reply and began to make a list of important goblins who had done some very important things in the battles of the 250's. She sighed. They'd been studying the stupid goblin wars since their second year. 


	3. In Divination

Disclaimer: see chapter one. A/N: Right, something's still funny with my chapters - what's a default chapter, anyway? - But I'll just hope something adjusts itself and clears everything up . . . If not - - help!! This might be a bit long, by the way. Octavian Brown is also my creation, obviously.  
  
After History of Magic came Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall had at last returned to her usual teaching job after being sent to a secret place with a secret message on a secret mission. None of the students missed her much; Ludo Bagman had taken over. Though considerably aged, he made class fun, such as making them transform wedges of cheese into rubber chickens, which they threw out the window onto unsuspecting people who were taking a stroll on the grounds. He himself wasn't very good and relied heavily on the students' information, which was often incorrect. Heather, the brilliant one, had to raise her hand and set Ludo right whenever he tried to teach them the wrong spell.  
  
Today, however, the Professor was back in her rightful place and, after greeting the students and informing them that she could tell them nothing about her absence, set about teaching them the theory of something or other. Lily was too distressed to take proper notes. Even though she had promised herself to concentrate on her studies instead of Thomas and Heather, she found herself stuttering stupidly at the Professor when asked what she was staring at.  
  
"The - I - well, the board - " Lily cleared her throat and tried to take up a commanding tone. She often found she got her way in this voice. "Nothing, Professor."  
  
Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrow suspiciously and turned back to the board to write something about the theory of legal impersonation. Heather was copying notes so quickly it seemed as though smoke was rising from her quill.  
  
So Thomas had chosen to ask out Heather. How did he even know her? Lily racked her brain but couldn't remember a single occasion where Heather had even mentioned Thomas, besides to comment on his good looks.  
  
Lily almost sighed again, then caught herself. She'd been sighing for the past fifteen minutes, and her surrounding classmates had been looking at her sideways, wondering if she was asthmatic. Lily felt frustrated again. No, Heather definitely didn't know Thomas as well as she did. Did she know that he had three light freckles on the underside of his wrist? Did she know the exact brown of his eyes? Did she know that he was in Advanced Herbology? Did she know that he was the only son of Draco Malfoy?  
  
Lily caught herself again before she got carried away. Of course she knew he was the son of Draco Malfoy; everybody knew that. But did she know the stories of her father's grudges against him? That he suspected Draco of being a double agent? No, nobody knew that except Lily; Professor Granger, who had told her; and Mr. Weasley.  
  
Sometimes Lily wondered if she blamed Thomas for his father's actions so many years ago. She knew Draco had been cruel to her father. To Harry Potter. The fallen, shamed, dead hero.  
  
"Lily?" Shawna's voice floated over the sudden rustling. Class was dismissed. "Look, are you okay? You seem kind of dazed."  
  
"What, are you so surprised I could get a date?" Heather snorted. "Have I shocked you so badly?"  
  
"You've got a date?" exclaimed a startled voice behind them. They turned to face Octavian Brown, who suddenly blushed. "Just interested, that's all."  
  
"Yes," Heather said, a touch of defensiveness in her voice. "Jeez, why does everyone have such low expectations of me?"  
  
"It's not that, I just - I was just curious." He rushed out before Heather could question him further. She turned to Lily.  
  
"So, why the sudden quietness?"  
  
Lily looked embarrassed. "It's nothing, I'm just tired." She gave a bad fake yawn, convincing neither of her friends, but neither pressed the matter. Heather immediately plunged into gushing about her upcoming date once more, allowing Lily more time to get down to the root of her feelings while inserting the proper comments at opportune times.  
  
"Yeah," she offered, staring at her feet.  
  
"And he's so cute!" Heather squealed so loudly a couple of first years stared at them. "I can't believe he asked me out. I mean I hardly even know him, except maybe from a distance!"  
  
"Maybe he was admiring you from far away," Shawna said. "Like, he liked you but he couldn't bring himself to ask out a Gryffindor, and he studied your every move from across the room and asked people about you and stuff. Oh, that's so romantic."  
  
"Yeah," Lily said again, this time staring at the filthy stone floors. Filch's knees often bothered him so much he was unable to mop, but nobody else volunteered. He liked to give out mopping punishments to students found possessing any of the now six hundred items listed on the poster on his office door.  
  
"So what are you going to do, go to Hogsmeade?" Shawna inquired.  
  
"Well, he said he'd get back to me, he just wanted to know if I'd go out with him, but we didn't have much time to talk because we both had to get to class!" Heather exclaimed, all in one breath.  
  
"Maybe you can talk to him at lunch! Only one more class period until you see him again!" Shawna cried.  
  
"Yeah," Lily inserted once more, studying her fingernails. "Well, I'll see you in a bit, I have Divination now, and you two have Muggle Studies, so see you!" She turned left and walked down a crowded corridor. She could hear their high-pitched voices three hallways later. She forced herself to snap back to reality. It felt as if Thomas was cheating on her, even though he'd never actually had a conversation with her. She sat down in a chintz armchair close to a window as she usually did. She found a slight breeze helped her to breathe. Now that Lord Voldemort was back in power, Professor Trelawny had slowly increased the amount of perfume in her room year by year, until the students complained to Professor Granger. The Headmistress had set a limit on the perfume amount, but Lily still felt light-headed whenever she climbed that silver ladder. The window let in a lovely spring breeze, and Lily took in the smell of April flowers.  
  
"Good morning, my dears," Professor Trelawny said in a misty voice. She emerged from behind a curtain, jingling as she walked. She was still collecting various necklaces and scarves, and now resembled a coat rack wrapped in silk and glass beads rather than a delicate insect. She still wore the ghastly glasses, which had become a bit of a joke within the Hogwarts population within the past decade. She nevertheless felt it necessary to behave mysteriously around her students.  
  
"I have been gazing in my crystal ball," she announced, lowering herself into her own special armchair next to the fire. "And I have seen horrible sights, and even death, my dears." She waited the proper amount of time for this information to settle in and shock the students. "And secrets. I see many secrets within these walls."  
  
Lily snapped to attention. What had her note said? "Don't moan about secrets." What a stupid thing to write. As if she would waste her time thinking about what it meant. Still, it was so obscure it bothered Lily. Her head suddenly seemed so full of thoughts she felt as if she were about to explode. She managed to catch the last of Professor Trelawny's words: "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has discovered someone who threatens him, someone who has the potential to defy his power, and he has vowed to destroy this person." Her voice lowered strangely with this last sentence. The students looked at each other apprehensively, wondering why her head had dropped to the side.  
  
"Is she dead?" someone asked, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.  
  
"No, stupid, she's breathing," Matilda's voice snorted. "Must you make it so obvious that you hate this class?" She stood up and prodded the Professor, awkwardly shaking her shoulder. The chaotic noise her beads made when shaken woke up Professor Trelawny, who apologized profusely for nodding off on them.  
  
"As I was saying, my dears . . . Can anybody tell me what I was last revealing to you?" she inquired uneasily, adjusting her glasses.  
  
"You said that You-Know-Who found someone who threatened him or something," Octavian answered.  
  
"And that they have the ability to defeat him, and that the Dark Lord has vowed to destroy them," Lily added.  
  
Professor Trelawny frowned. "I believe, my dears, you are pulling my leg, so they say, because as I remember, I was revealing to you what was revealed to me in my crystal ball." She coughed into her hand and threw Lily a suspicious look. "I saw secrets in these halls. You all have secrets, and it was revealed to me to help you discover them, my dears. For you can have secrets without knowing it. Please uncover your crystal balls and let your Inner Eye take over . . ."  
  
Lily stared into the glass sphere, feeling stupid. All she saw were clouds of fog, as usual. But then, suddenly, she saw a shape. She leaned closer, surprised and intrigued. The shape took a sharper form, and she gasped as she saw that it was her grown father. He was holding a woman in his arms, and Lily observed that the woman was pregnant. She couldn't see her face, but assumed it was her mother. She leaned closer, her nose nearly touching the cool surface of the crystal ball. The view, as if it were a camera, revolved around the scene so Lily could see everything.  
  
Harry Potter was holding his pregnant wife in his arms tightly, his wand in his right arm. His eyes were shut tight with concentration, and her face was buried in his black robes. He was muttering something very quickly, and his wife suddenly began to glow. She stepped back from him, and both of them looked down at her slightly rounded stomach.  
  
Lily had leaned in too close, and her nose really did touch the crystal ball's surface. Immediately the gray clouds swirled in, blocking the scene from Lily's vision. She was deep in contemplation again; her head ached from thinking so much.  
  
She had just seen her father in a crystal ball. It looked as though he were whispering sweet nothings in his wife's ear, but Lily toyed with the idea of a charm or a hex or a curse. A charm to protect me, she thought, so I'd be born safely, even if my mother died. Maybe a curse to kill my mother? No, that wouldn't be right . . .  
  
She jumped slightly in her seat when she realized she had witnessed the only image of her mother she had ever seen. Lily had her mother's eyes. 


	4. The Breakup

Disclaimer: See chapter one. A/N: I can't find my story except to click my "stats" button. Is there a way to have it listed or something? Or am I just stupid?  
  
"You saw your parents in your crystal ball?" Heather asked incredulously. "Seriously?"  
  
Lily nodded after telling them the story for the third time. She buttered her toast and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on top, as usual. "And Dad was holding Mum and whispering something." She paused. "It's the first time I've actually seen her, you know."  
  
Shawna nodded sympathetically. "It must be so hard not to know who your mother is. Was," she corrected herself quickly, then winced at the harshness of her last words.  
  
Lily didn't notice. The owls were coming in this morning as usual, and she wondered if she would receive any more unusual notes. She sighed, relieved, after the last owl left the Great Hall. It was probably a prank note, she assured herself. No sense wanting any others, was there?  
  
For the next few weeks, as the weather grew steadily warmer and the anxiety of O.W.L.s moved in upon the fifth years, Lily had to endure Heather's babbling about her relationship with Thomas. She also had to contend with the sight of the two walking down the corridors, holding hands and gazing at each other like sick puppies. She still hadn't gotten over the fact that Thomas, the one male she adored at Hogwarts, had asked out one of her best friends. She couldn't help but watch him from a distance, though, as she did before. She worried that she was becoming too obsessive. The word "stalker" floated across her mind a few times.  
  
"You know, Lily," Heather said ponderously one afternoon early in May as they flipped through their Charms textbooks, "Thomas has been asking me about you."  
  
Lily jumped and looked up, her large blue eyes startled. "What?"  
  
Heather nodded. "Stuff like what it's like being the daughter of Harry Potter. Awfully curious. Maybe on of his friends has a crush on you."  
  
Lily frowned. "What else did he ask?"  
  
"Oh, I don't know, umm . . . What you thought of that weird note you got, which bathroom we use the most." She laughed.  
  
"Yeah, you know, I noticed one of his buddies, some Slytherin hunk, staring at you in the breakfast hall," Shawna offered. "I think maybe he's the one who wants to know so much about you. Or he wants to give you a swirly, or whatever they're called." She had been strangely quiet for the past few days, and Lily thought it might have been because she was secretly jealous of Heather's happiness.  
  
Lily bit the inside of her cheek. The day before, at breakfast, she had received another note. "Beware the lair of Slytherin," it had read. Her surrounding classmates discussed what it could have meant.  
  
"It's probably the Chamber of Secrets," Heather said immediately. "But why would you go in there? It's off-limits, and it's in the grossest bathroom."  
  
"The one bathroom haunted by a ghost," Matilda added. "Have any of you met Moaning Myrtle? Here's some advice: don't. Bloody ghost, banging around and groaning about how she can't breathe or eat. Just come to grips with being dead, I say. Can't be that hard, she was killed about twenty years ago."  
  
Moan . . . Secrets . . . Is that what the first note meant? Lily wondered. She marveled at the coincidence between the questions Thomas was asking and the location of the Chamber of Secrets, then wondered if it was really a coincidence at all, considering his father. Maybe her own father's suspicions were correct - maybe Thomas came from a family of betrayers and double agents. She said nothing to Heather, though, not wanting to spoil her happiness with stupid thoughts like these.  
  
For the next few days she didn't receive any notes, but on a sunny Saturday morning another brown owl swooped down and dropped another note in her lap. Her friends looked at her expectantly, so she cleared her throat read it aloud.  
  
" 'The Dark Lord has chosen an enemy and will become his enemy's love.' What does that mean?" Lily shook her head in confusion. Her friends looked mystified.  
  
"Maybe you should go see Professor Granger," Heather said hesitantly.  
  
Shawna rolled her eyes. "Look, the notes are pranks. Lame ones at that. Somebody's just trying to scare us, okay?"  
  
"It wouldn't hurt to ask the Headmistress," said Lily thoughtfully, still staring at the carefully formed letters. "If she has any time to spare for me. I mean, she would know what to do, right?"  
  
"Why don't you wait for a bit," Shawna suggested. "Until you get more notes, or something. You don't want to bother her, she's stressed enough. Might lose up points!"  
  
Shawna was right. Professor Granger's usual facial expression these days was an extremely worried one. Her brows were drawn together so they formed a straight line, and ridges lined her forehead constantly. Voldemort and his followers had taken over Beauxbatons at last after a long battle. There were rumors that Hogwarts was next, and many who lived on the castle grounds were growing uneasy. She had to organize an army for emergencies, and plan what to do with the younger students who knew too little to be of aid. Not to mention be the Headmistress of Hogwarts, which is in itself very exhausting. Lily decided to mention it to a teacher. Someone a little less stressed.  
  
After Transfiguration, as everyone left the classroom, Lily approached Professor McGonagall tentatively. "Professor?"  
  
Her head snapped up from the paper she was grading. "Yes, Miss Potter?"  
  
Lily swallowed. "I've been getting weird notes in the owl mail during breakfast . . . My friend said I should probably tell somebody, since they're kind of weird." She drew them from her bag, paper-clipped together, and handed them to the Professor, who sifted through them with a furrowed brow.  
  
"Well, Miss Potter," she said after a bit, "I'm not sure what to tell you . . . They certainly are very strange notes, but for now I wouldn't worry too much. The last one sounded oddly ominous. Hmm . . . If you get any more notes like this, please do not hesitate to see me." She looked grave. "You can never be too careful."  
  
Lily nodded and took the notes back. "Thank you, Professor. Er . . . Have a good lunch." She left the room and heard the chair creak as the Professor sank into it to grade more papers.  
  
When she arrived at the common room that night after dinner, she found Shawna sitting in the corner, reading a thick book. She hadn't been down to eat.  
  
"Shawna?" Lily asked. "Did you eat?"  
  
She slammed the book shut and frowned up at Lily. "I couldn't take her anymore. Yes, I do mean Heather, don't look so surprised. I've gotten to the end of my rope. She's so . . ." She made a strangling gesture in the air, and finished lamely with, "Annoying."  
  
Lily sank into the chair beside her. "Talking about Thomas?"  
  
"Yes. All - the - time. Rubbing it in." She glanced darkly at Lily. "I know I sound stupid-"  
  
"No, you don-"  
  
"But she won't stop talking about how Thomas said this, and wasn't that so romantic, and the first time Thomas kissed her, and everything else in between. As if she needs to rub it in more!"  
  
"Rub what in, Shawna?" Lily asked meekly. She didn't want to get on Shawna's bad side.  
  
"That she's got a boyfriend and I don't!" she burst out angrily, causing several people to jump and peer up from their homework. They began to eavesdrop on the girls' conversation. "Look, I know I'm better looking than her. I know it! I put in so much time into my appearance and it seems like nobody notices it! But she, she just waltzes out of here with her hair in that horrendous messy bun and all of a sudden she has a boyfriend, and we're left in the dust until she comes back and relates all the little details to us! Like I care how it feels to be kissed by Thomas."  
  
Lily sensed a pause in the tidal wave of words, and inserted what she felt to be fair to Heather and Thomas. "But it's not all about appearances," she said in a pacifying voice. "It's what's on the inside that-"  
  
"I knew you'd say that!" Shawna growled, glaring at her. "I knew it! But even there, what does he see in her? How can he stand her, babbling on like an idiot? Why was I even friends with her in the beginning? I hate her!" she cried, then realized what she'd said. She clapped her hand to her mouth and looked horrified. "Did I just . . .?" She jumped out of her chair and ran to her dormitory, as if she'd only just noticed what a monster jealousy had made out of her. Lily stared at her hands, still digesting what she's heard spewing out of Shawna's lip-glossed mouth.  
  
She looked up, and immediately saw five or six heads jerk back down and pretend to be concentrating extra-hard on their homework. A few kept flicking their gaze up to her, and she felt she couldn't stand it anymore. She decided to go back down to the Great Hall and see if Heather were there.  
  
When she descended the staircase, she saw Heather rush out of the Great Hall, crying loudly. Her tears dribbled down her face and onto her robes, and she was sobbing without shame. Very alarmed, Lily ran down the rest of the stairs and chased after Heather, joined shortly by Thomas, still looking handsome even as he huffed and puffed.  
  
"What happened?" Lily asked as they sprinted after her friend.  
  
Thomas looked pained. "I just broke up with her, and she started bawling and ran away from me before I could calm her down or whatever. I tried to do it gently," he added when he saw Lily's angry gaze, "but she went mad or something . . ."  
  
They found her crouched beside a statue of Cupid. "Heather." Lily bent down and squatted on the balls of her feet. "Heather, listen to me. We're going up to the dormitory, okay?" She cast around her mind for comforting things to say, but a small crowd was gathering behind them to watch the spectacle and making her nervous. "Stand up."  
  
Heather looked up into Lily's face. Her eyes were red and puffy, her nostrils flared. She was taking gasping breaths. "Okay," she agreed feebly. She rose unsteadily, grabbing Lily's shoulder for support. She sniffled and almost said something, then noticed who was lurking behind Lily.  
  
WHACK! Heather had charged at Thomas and smacked him fully across the face. He stood, looking shocked and stricken, while she yelled at him.  
  
"You said you wanted to be with me!" she cried. "I thought you loved me! I thought I loved you but now I see you're a selfish, arrogant jerk!"  
  
Thomas mumbled something, his eyes full of fear and confusion and remorse, looking down to her hands, which had balled themselves into fists.  
  
Heather let out a whimper and relaxed her shoulders. "It's my birthday tomorrow." In a fresh burst of tears, she whirled around into Lily's arms. Lily patted her back, then began walking toward the staircase. She wasn't sure what to say, but it didn't matter because Heather was sobbing too loudly into her robes to hear. Thomas hadn't moved. Lily shot him a venomous glance over her shoulder, but she still couldn't escape the first thought that came into her head: He's single again! Mentally kicking herself in the head, she forced herself to be angry with him for hurting her friend so much. She gave the password and they crawled into the portrait hole and into their dormitory.  
  
Thomas' handsome, shocked face wouldn't get out of her head, even as she fell asleep to Heather's occasional sniffles and sobs. 


	5. The Chamber

Disclaimer: see chapter one. A/N: wow, this story is a whole lot shorter than I meant it to be. Whatever, for those of us with short attention spans, it's fine.  
  
The next day, Lily woke up early and shook Shawna awake. They had a whispered conversation in the common room once Shawna got over her anger at being awakened at four o'clock.  
  
"It's her birthday today," Lily informed Shawna.  
  
"I'm aware," replied Shawna in a slightly slurred voice. "So what? Planning a surprise party?"  
  
"No . . . Just wondering if we should bring it up, after Thomas broke up with her." Lily saw Shawna's eyes widen, then, as she remembered the previous night's events, cloud over with worry.  
  
"I don't know," she said slowly. "Maybe we should see what she feels like when she wakes up. She was pretty angry last night, and sad, and . . . I don't know. Well, we can't just avoid her. We don't have classes, it's Sunday, right?"  
  
They lapsed into silence, then decided to return to the dormitory. Heather was curled up tightly in her bed, her arms wrapped protectively around herself. She had cried herself to sleep the night before. Matilda, who slept in the same dormitory, was extremely confused. Lily took it upon herself to explain to her that Heather was having . . . issues at the moment. She wasn't sure if her friend wanted her to tell everyone who asked about the break-up.  
  
They ended up spending the entire day in the dormitory, comforting Heather and bashing Thomas.  
  
"He was a low-down, good-for-nothing git," Shawna spat out vehemently.  
  
"He doesn't deserve to live, or even have beautiful girls like you snogging him," Lily added.  
  
"I hope he's sorry for what he did. I'll bet he'll be begging you to come back," Matilda said sincerely. "Just promise us you won't be begging him."  
  
"I can't believe he dumped me," Heather kept saying. "I thought I meant something to him, but apparently not." She frowned at her fluffy- slippered toes. "He certainly means nothing to me." All the girls patted her back tenderly. They knew she was still feeling rejected.  
  
Shawna offered to get breakfast for everyone, since Heather didn't want to leave the room, let alone go down to the Great Hall. She returned with eight pieces of toast, butter, and special dishes of cinnamon and sugar for Lily, who greatly appreciated it. They munched and continued to hiss about Thomas.  
  
"He should really be in detention, you know, or at least expelled," Shawna exclaimed. "Toying about with the student population's emotions."  
  
"Distracting us from our studies, like by being such a git to Heather," Lily growled.  
  
"For just being a git in general," Matilda huffed.  
  
Heather began to feel better, but still didn't want to leave the dormitory. Matilda left to get lunch for everyone. Just when they began to worry after twenty minutes, she came back with crispy chicken fingers and five quarts of chocolate ice cream.  
  
"Had to find the kitchens to get this . . . Ice cream is the best remedy for any ailment," she declared, then paused. "Except maybe a stomach ache from too much ice cream."  
  
"Or a brain freeze," added Shawna.  
  
"But it definitely cures Thomas-Malfoy-itis, also known as the Major Stupid Git Disease," proclaimed Lily, trying her very best to make Heather smile.  
  
Heather grinned slightly. "Thanks, guys."  
  
Running out of mean names for Thomas (as well as rude metaphors), their conversation turned to other things, such as Quidditch and complaining about schoolwork. Matilda and Shawna were playing wizard's chess, still participating in the discussion. They began to feel sick after talking about certain Potions teachers' greasy hair, and then realized they were hungry. Lily glanced at Shawna and Matilda, then volunteered to fetch dinner herself.  
  
"I'll be right back," she said cheerily. "Well, I might nip off to the kitchens to get some more ice cream, so I might be a while."  
  
"Do you know where it is?" Matilda asked helpfully.  
  
"I have a general idea . . . I seem to remember Professor Granger leading us down there once, to see the house-elves in their dirty old rags before she began to pay them. Or rather, force money into their hands. Honestly, I really think house-elves don't like being paid, or being given new clothes, but-"  
  
"Lily?" Heather asked tentatively. "Dinner?"  
  
"Oh - right." She laughed inwardly at herself. She'd been babbling just like Heather did before the break-up. Heather was rather quiet now, and perhaps Lily felt as if a lot of chatter was needed.  
  
She was thinking so hard about this that it took her a good fifteen or twenty seconds to realize that that strange hiccuping sound was somebody weeping. Stopping mid-step, she discovered it was coming from behind a grimy, green door. Upon opening it, she saw an ancient, seldom-used girls' bathroom. She certainly never used it, nor wanted to. The floors were absolutely filthy, not to mention the state of the toilets.  
  
"Um. . . Hello?" Lily called quietly, her voice trembling.  
  
"Oh!" a voice, thick with tears, exclaimed. "I didn't know anyone was in here."  
  
"Are you all right?" asked Lily, peering into the first and second stall and seeing no one. She gasped when she looked into the third stall and saw a pearly white ghost sitting on the scuffed-up toilet, its seat hanging sadly over the side. From the marks etched into the seat, it looked as though someone had set up their cauldron on the toilet. No doubt to brew illegal potions, Lily thought grimly.  
  
"Are you all right?" Lily inquired of the ghost, who was still snuffling and looking despairingly at her feet.  
  
"Oh, yes, I'm fine," the ghost sniffled. "I was just contemplating suicide again, when I realized I'm already dead."  
  
"Er - who are you?"  
  
"Myrtle," replied the ghost tearfully. "I haunt various bathrooms here at Hogwarts. I keep getting thrown out, though, so I just sit here in this bathroom. Nobody uses it, probably because of me." She dissolved into new sobs, burying her head in her arms.  
  
"Don't - don't cry," Lily said worriedly, trying to speak in a soothing voice. "I'm sure it's not because of you." She crossed her fingers behind her back.  
  
"Oh, nobody likes me, I know that," Myrtle wailed. She gave an ear- splitting shriek, which bounced off the walls of the bathroom, echoing oddly. Lily continued to comfort her, but it seemed no use.  
  
"Lily?" said a familiar voice behind her.  
  
Lily whirled around to face Thomas. In one second, it seemed as though hundreds of thoughts and feelings pelted her mind. She made her face frown at him.  
  
"What do you want, Malfoy?" she snarled, intimidating even herself.  
  
Thomas looked surprised. "I thought it was obvious." He gave an odd sneeze. "Pardon me."  
  
A grinding noise sounded behind Lily. She tried to turn around to see what it was, but Thomas grabbed her wrists and stepped forward.  
  
"I-" His words were cut short as he tripped and sent both of them sprawling backwards. To Lily's very great surprise, they didn't bump into the sinks behind them, but went sliding down something very slimy and dark.  
  
"What happened?" she cried, panicked, as they slithered down what must have been a slide or a pipe. He had let go of her wrists and was tumbling beside her, jabbing her occasionally with his elbows. Lily banished from her head all gleeful thoughts about being in a dark place with Thomas. Still, she couldn't help being excited that he knew her first name. She couldn't believe herself. This was the jerk who'd dumped her best friend in front of everyone! This was the git they'd been bashing in the dormitory!  
  
"Don't - know," Thomas answered in a muffled sort of way.  
  
Suddenly, they both felt themselves flying in the air for a bit, then land roughly on hard, damp ground in what appeared to be a long tunnel. They stood up immediately.  
  
"Oh, no," Lily gasped. "I think I know where we are."  
  
"Good," Thomas said, smiling in the dim light in a way Lily didn't quite like or understand.  
  
"Did you mean to take me down here, Thomas Malfoy?" she demanded. "Let me out, right this minute!" She fingered her wand in the pocket of her robes, thinking of a spell that would make him take her out of the Chamber of Secrets.  
  
Thomas blinked and his face became very serious. "Okay, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have tricked you, but . . . I just wanted a quiet place to talk to you. Where nobody would bother us. Come on." He walked for a bit down the tunnel, and Lily followed, puzzled.  
  
She still frowned at him, though her mind was softening its guard at the look on his handsome face. "What do you want to talk to me about?" she asked.  
  
He sighed and bit his lip, looking as though he was trying to put his thoughts into words in the right order. "Look, first of all, I didn't really mean to hurt Heather," he said quietly. "I should have done it someplace quiet. Like here. But I took her aside in the Great Hall instead, thinking she'd take it okay and we would be able to talk it out." He sighed again. "But instead, she yelled at me and slapped me, as you saw. I had no idea today was her birthday, you know. She didn't even give me a chance to confess the real reason I broke up with her." He stopped walking and glanced around the marble chamber they were in before looking back at her.  
  
It was silent for a moment, before Lily finally took his bait and asked, "Which was?"  
  
"I am in love with someone else." Thomas swallowed and looked at her very seriously, yet almost tenderly. "I rarely speak to her, and yet I feel as if I know her better than most . . . I watch her from across the room. She's so beautiful, it's hard not to, you know. I desperately wanted to talk to her, but I couldn't gather up my courage. She would think I was mad." He fell silent again.  
  
"Why are you telling me this?" Lily whispered, hoping against hope she already knew the answer.  
  
Thomas took hold of both her shaking hands and pulled her closer. Her heart thumped wildly and she tried not to breathe too heavily. He leaned toward her and whispered in her ear, "Because I'm in love with you."  
  
Lily's heart soared, and her mind exploded in fireworks even before he looked her deep in the eyes and set his lips against hers. She shut her eyes and wrapped her arms around him, pouring out her love and need into her kiss. She pushed out all guilty thoughts of Heather, and kept having to remind herself that this was real.  
  
But somehow, she noticed after a bit, she didn't feel like the kiss filled her with warmth and love the way Heather had described it to. It was just his lips against hers, with no emotion from his side. Still kissing, she opened her eyes questioningly, then screamed.  
  
His eyes were staring straight into hers, and they were red as blood. 


	6. End

Disclaimer: *sigh* see previous chapters.  
  
Author's Note: Right, probably should wrap up this quick, 6-chapter story. Thanks for the lovely reviews (cough cough three of them cough) . . . Maybe I'll do a longer, more complicated version of this story later on. OK, the end.  
  
Lily screamed, and suddenly the chamber echoed with high-pitched laughter that made the hair on her arms stand straight up. She knew where she was, she knew who HE was, she knew she'd played right into his trap. She started to feel herself withering, but the image of her father's face put strength in her.  
  
Lord Voldemort stood straight up, a full three feet taller than Lily. "Silly mortals," he hissed, "to think love is something real!" He laughed again.  
  
Lily's mouth went completely dry. "Why - what - ?" Her feeble attempts at sounding intimidating were in vain and she stuttered unintelligently, unable to tear her eyes from his horrible face.  
  
"Don't worry," he said mockingly in a pacifying sort of voice, "your precious Thomas had nothing to do with this, although I, a completely different Thomas, have everything to do with this . . . You must be so proud. Your father unleashed the wrath of a thousand universes when he failed to defeat me. As if there was a chance," he scoffed. "But listen to me, babbling on like this, when you must want to die straight away. Let's finish off the Potter clan here and now, while we're all still awake. Avada Kedavra!"  
  
Lily felt completely disoriented and terrified. As soon as she heard the curse and saw the horrible green light, she gasped and knew for sure that this was the very last second of her life.  
  
But five seconds later she was still alive, and Voldemort had fallen backwards. He stood up, shakily, and cursed. "I knew your father would do something like that," he spat.  
  
Lily understood. There was a protective shield around her; Professor Granger had told her about it once, but she'd never really thought about it. Now, she was so thankful to her father that two tiny tears escaped from the corners of her eyes.  
  
"Well, I'll do it a different way. Collapsio!" Voldemort pointed his wand at the nearest marble column, and Lily had just enough time to register what was happening and jump nimbly out of the way. It crashed down in front of her, knocking her down and blinding her with dust.  
  
A second column, on the other side, was falling toward her. She scrambled away from it, but it crushed her foot. Panicked and terrified, she reached in her back pocket for her wand but found that Voldemort was standing above her, smiling gleefully and twirling her wand in his long, white fingers, then steadying it so it pointed straight up toward the ceiling of the chamber. "Collapsio."  
  
Cracks spread across the ceiling in a spiderweb pattern, and chunks of marble rained down on her. A loud, rumbling sound echoed at the other end of the chamber and Lily saw huge pieces of the ceiling loosen their grip and, obeying the pull of gravity, pound into the ground and make their own crater.  
  
The cracks reached the area of the ceiling above her, and Lily used a jagged rock that had landed on her hand to push herself up on one foot, wondering crazily where she could protect herself.  
  
"There is no where to run," said Voldemort's cruel voice. "Prepare to meet dear Daddy."  
  
He was standing behind her. Lily whirled around to face him, and, before either of them knew it, had hit him in the face with the rock she had in her hand. She unleashed her own fury on him, avenging her father's death by causing as much physical harm as possible, before something knocked into the back of her neck and everything went black.  
  
She would learn the story later, when she woke up, of how she helped in a major way to defeat Lord Voldemort. Mostly, though, it was her father who killed him.  
  
Harry Potter had placed a protective charm around his baby daughter before she was even born, knowing she'd have a troubled life even if he had lived. Shortly after, he was murdered and Lord Voldemort rose in power.  
  
The only person who could ever defeat him was Lily Potter, he had discovered, since Harry's blood ran in her veins. With every intention of killing her, he took the form of Thomas Malfoy and took her into the Chamber of Secrets.  
  
He tried to kill her directly, but it rebounded as it had on Harry and hit him. He was no mere human, however, and it only took some of him great power away from him. He had strength enough to finish the girl off, he decided, by killing her indirectly.  
  
What he had not counted on was Harry's spirit in Lily. Her will to survive and her fury fueled her to attack the Dark Lord, who was no longer protected from her fingernails and well-aimed punches. A large part of the ceiling knocked them both out, however, and when Professor Granger arrived, she found them both on the floor looking dead. Lily was tended to, and a dementor was summoned to kiss the unconscious body of Lord Voldemort. His body was placed in a secret compartment under the rails of the Gringott's cart system, and various hexes and curses were placed on it that made it impossible to bring Voldemort back to life.  
  
Lily didn't feel like she defeated him. Scratched his eyes out, maybe, but she knew it was Harry who'd finally finished the task he was destined to do. She was no longer ashamed of his defeat, since he ultimately beat the Dark Lord. She could finally be proud of her father.  
  
Author's Note: Yeah, lame ending, well, I wanted to just finish it. Maybe I'll have a longer version someday. Meanwhile . . . I'm writing under the pen name toastsnatcher (hope it's OK to have 2?) so go check it out, dude. . Bye! 


End file.
